3230 Classical Mechanics II covers noninertial frames of reference, Newton's second law in a rotating frame, centrifugal force, Coriolis force, motion of rigid bodies, properties of the center of mass, rotation about a fixed axis, rotation about any axis, inertia tensor, Euler's equations with zero torque, coupled oscillators, chaos theory, bifurcation diagrams, state-space orbits, Poincare sections, Hamiltonian dynamics, ignorable coordinates, phase-space orbits, Liouville's theorem, scattering angle, impact parameter, differential scattering cross section, and Rutherford scattering.

PR: PHYS 3220, Mathematics 2260 and 3202.

In this course students are introduced to advanced topics of classical mechanics allowing complex real-life problems to be solved such as physics in noninertial frames and the rotation of rigid objects. In these sections, students will learn important topics such as the Coriolis effect and the centrifugal force and describe the rotation of objects about any axis. Using Lagrangian dynamics, students will learn to solve complex systems of coupled oscillators using a general matrix formulism. Similar to Lagrangian dynamics, students will learn to tackle advanced problems using the Hamiltonian formalism by solving Hamilton’s equations in order to get the equations of motion for the system. Lastly, students will be exposed to the classical representation of collision theory where they learn concepts such as collision cross section and Rutherford scattering.